A.I.: Artificial Intelligence ****
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Ian Watson (screen story), Brian Aldiss (short story ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’), Steven Spielberg (Screenplay), and Stanley Kubrick (concept)
Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, William Hurt, Frances O’Connor and Jack Angel
Rated PG-13 (no particulars listed)
I freely admit from the outset that it was impossible for me to go into this film unbiased. The late Stanley Kubrick is one of my heroes, and had been developing this film for at least 10 years before his untimely death. However, he did want Steven Spielberg to direct it. Mr. Spielberg initally declined, but the two remained in contact throughout the years, and when Mr. Kubrick passed away, his family offered the movie to Spielberg again, and, obviously, he accepted. I have not disagreed with Stanley Kubrick before, and I don’t intend to start now.
On the surface, A.I. is a re-telling of the Pinnocchio fairy-tale. Don’t let this mislead you – like most fairy-tales, this one really isn’t for children. It’s rated PG-13 for a reason. This is not a film for children. The tale that unfolds on the screen is deep, dark, sometimes disturbing, but ultimately rewarding.
A.I. is the story of David (Osment), an advanced model android, similar to Rachael in the classic Blade Runner. David is ‘adopted’, for lack of a better term, by a couple who has a biological son in a coma. Part of what makes David unique amongst androids is his ability to ‘love’ his parents. This ‘love’ is unlocked by saying a code-phrase. Should a parent ever stop ‘loving’ their android, they must return it to the factory for destruction – the imprinting is irreversible. When the biological son of ‘Mommy’ (O’Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards) returns home, sparks fly.
For those of you who are familiar with Stanley Kubrick, one of the themes that emerges early on is ‘What makes emotion real?’ In Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL is ‘programmed’ to respond to his crewmates in an ‘emotional’ fashion. But, what makes a computer’s ‘emotions’ any less valid than those of a human? Hasn’t a human been ‘programmed’ to react with certain emotions in certain situations? It’s one thing to frame that question when the computer in question is represented as a red ‘eye’ placed in various areas around a spacecraft; it’s quite another when the computer is, for all intents and purposes, an 11-year-old boy, subject to the cruelty of other children and adults.
The way that the question is framed in A.I. plays quite well into Spielberg’s strengths as a director. Inside Steven Spielberg is the heart of a 12-year-old boy. In E.T., we see the fear and misunderstanding that children have of adults. In the Indiana Jones series, and in Jurassic Park, we see the part of a 12-year-old boy that likes action, adventure, and dinosaurs. In A.I., we see both the wonder that only a child has when witnessing creation, and we see the horror that only a child can inflict on another child. We see the unconditional love of a child for a parent, and we see that most adults have forgotten what it is like to be a child.
Things get bad in the Swinton household, so the only choice is to get rid of David. ‘Mommy’ can’t bear to see this ‘son’ of hers ‘die’, so she abandons him with his friend Teddy (voiced by Jack Angel), a ‘supertoy’ in the shape of a teddy bear.
David and Teddy wind up in a ‘Flesh Fair’, a carnival where unlicensed androids are destroyed in order to celebrate the ‘One Human Race’. In the flesh fair, David meets Gigilo Joe (Law), a pleasure-model android. David’s quest to find the ‘Blue Fairy’ that will turn him into a real boy brings the party to Rouge City and Dr. Know (voiced by Robin Williams).
To go further into the plot would ruin the film for those of you who choose to view it, so I will stop right here. If you don’t see it, you are truly missing out on one of the finest films of the year. If you do see it, be warned: unlike most summer films, A.I. will make you think. It will make you feel. It will make you talk. It might even confuse you.
I could go on writing about this film for pages and pages, but this is a movie review, not a short course in film criticism or philosophy. I will close by saying that this may be one of Steven Spielberg’s best films, and I am saddened that Stanley Kubrick is not alive to see a film that is certainly a fitting tribute to his genius.
